I Grieve (English translation)
by MelimeGreenleaf
Summary: How could Sherlock continue his life after what happened that night? How could he continue living after losing his best friend?


He was sitting in the ambulance, with that ridiculous orange blanket covering his shoulders. He ignored the questions from Lestrade, the same way that he ignored the paramedics that bandaged his arm. He still could not understand what happened, only that it was no use looking for Watson in the crowd.

It was not yet one o'clock in the morning, but it seemed like an eternity had passed since the moment they approached the pool. For how long he punched the inert body of Moriarty? Not enough to appease his anger. If he had not been dragged away he would continue beating until he dissolved that bastard's skull.

He didn't want to go back to his apartment and find it empty. He no longer knew how to live without the presence of John, without someone to remember him to do at least one meal a day, without someone who cared...

He should have shot at the bomb when he had the chance. Maybe then everyone would have died, but that would be better than being the only one to survive. Apart from the shooter, of course. The gunman who fled when he realized that his boss was dead. The damn gunman who killed John Watson.

He ran once he heard the shot, holding his friend's body before it reached the ground. It was too late, the bullet passed directly through the heart, death was instantaneous. He never felt as angry as he felt that day, he had never done anything so reckless as to attack Moriarty. Nothing else mattered, he not even felt the bullet that passed by and only grazed his arm. He beat that bastard until Lestrade came and dragged him away, despite knowing that he killed him shortly after the first blows.

Why John abandoned him?

He heard Anderson comment that John deserved to die for being friends with a psychopath. It was more than he could bear. He not even realized when he got up and ran toward that idiot, he just understood what he had done when he was dragged away from an unconscious and obviously injured Anderson, dragged back with the blood of another dirtying his hands. Perhaps Sergeant Donovan was right, maybe he was a dangerous murderer waiting to happen. Maybe Moriarty had awakened this killer.

How should he continue with his life now? How could he go on living knowing what he caused John's death?

He somehow managed to return home, though he didn't remember who brought him there. He kept thinking of that crash, of the time when John's fate had been sealed. He cried that night, as he had never cried before, knowing that the house was empty and that nobody cared. Somehow, he knew he wasn't able to bear it alone, he wasn't able to bear that failure. His home was no longer a home, it was an empty cage, a prison of memories made to torture him.

The great Sherlock Holmes, that could tell everything about a person just by looking at her for a moment, that could solve any mystery, that didn't needed anyone! The great Sherlock Holmes, that wasn't able to predict that bullet, that failed to save his friend, that could not bear to be alone!

Why John left him there alone? Didn't he realized that he was not able to go on living like this? Didn't he realized that life had no longer meaning?

He was angry with John too. He felt angry because he had abandoned him, but mainly because he entered his life. Never before he needed friends, and now he discovered that he could not live without him. He hated the pain, the longing and the friendship. And he hated especially who created those feelings.

Mycroft tried to console him, but there was no reason to listen. Nobody understood this pain, no one understood his suffering. Sherlock didn't even move when his brother arrived nor offered any resistance when he was dragged from the floor to the couch. He could never forget, he could never move on. He knew he needed John, who lost his life that night.

Eventually everyone returned to their normal lives, only he couldn't return. The hours turned into days and days, into months. And he still couldn't move on with his life. He wasn't yet able to continue. Each taxi in the city, each apartment space, every police officer that he saw, everything reminded him of John. Alone he wasn't able to forget.

Before long he returned to surrender to the addiction abandoned for years. Cocaine, seven percent. It was the only thing that allowed him to survive day after day. It was the only thing that sustained his illusions. He just had peace while under its effect. He loved the sweet hallucinations in which he saw John, he hated the nightmares that haunted him with the death of his friend.

He no longer cared about the cases nor fleeing from boredom. All that mattered now was the boredom and the next dose, more and more cocaine. He needed the drug as he has never needed before, he needed her to believe in the dreams, in the hallucinations. He needed her to believe that John was alive. And only then he could find some relief.

But the pain will never leave him.


End file.
